Guatemala Welcome

Hello from Guatemala! Tomorrow I leave with a delegation from Augustana Lutheran Church, West St. Paul to northern Guatemala for a week and then various other places around the country for another week. We are going to La Ezmerelda (sp) which is 9 hours by bus and an additional 3 hours in the back of a truck away from Guatemala city. This community has no electricity or running water. It is mostly made up of resettled refugees that were either internally displaced during the war or were forced to leave the country. Many of these communities speak several languages so Spanish is their second and common language. I look forward to sharing with you when I next have email access. Today I went with Horatio and his father Padre Hortaio around Guatemala City on errands. One of our stops was to pick up 4 packages of books that the delegation coming down sent ahead of them. They were a wonderful gift... however in Guatemala packages are taxed on this end. Each package was opened up and carefully looked through and since their was an invoice the inspector knew the exact prices of these books... so the gift ended up being very expensive from this end. We need to be careful how we give gifts, they might cause additional hardship. My Spanish is actually coming along. I can follow some conversations now even if I cannot yet form my own sentences! Hopefully this means that Spanish will come quickly for me... it is frustrating not to be able to converse. I am a preacher after all... I like words! Oh, the early corn harvest was going on in El Salvador while I was there. Mostly it was what we would call cattle corn, but it is heartier so actually better for the people. Once the corn is ready, they go out into the fields and by hand or machete () bend the stocks in half so that the corn can dry and be ready to eat. It is strange to look at mountains and see corn growing on steep banks.